


Come Home to Me

by stuck_inher_daydreams



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff, Love, Post-Season/Series 03, Reunion, Speed Force, so cheesy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 15:15:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11970063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuck_inher_daydreams/pseuds/stuck_inher_daydreams
Summary: After finally defeating Savitar and saving Iris, Barry has to give himself up to the Speedforce to pay penance for all that he's done. But he can't stay there forever, he needs to get home, get to Iris. The last person he would of thought of shows up to help him to do it. No matter what- Barry will get back home to her.





	Come Home to Me

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! This is a story I wrote for one of my popular romance class just after the season finale, and because I was still devastated over the end of the season I decided I wanted to write their reunion just to cheer myself up a bit. Certain things don't add up with the actual show, like in the flashbacks but I changed things because I really wish we could have seen more of Iris taking charge, seeking out Savitar and finding out herself why he wants to kill her and see more realistic emotions from her and Barry. I expected a lot more frustration from them just from not being scared of losing each other and being overly protective and emotional.  
> Please let me know what you all think and enjoy!

“Road trip, baby!” Barry Allen yells, with his fists pumped in the air and a smile towards his fiancée, Iris West.

“Babe, you know I love you, but please don’t ever do that again or I might die from embarrass-” Iris stops speaking the second she sees the smile leaves Barry’s face. “Too soon?” 

“Yeah I think so” he says softly, a small smile returning. “Let’s just go, shall we?” He puts the rest of their bags in the back of the car, walks over to the passenger door and opens it for her, giving her a kiss as she got in. He sits in the driver’s seat, starts the engine and off they go. Entering the highway, they were now driving alongside the coast. With the windows down, the smell of the salt water wafted down to them, it was fresh and pure. The water was so blue it was surreal, the coastline stretching out endlessly. The sun shone brightly above, it was the perfect day. 

This is just what we need, Barry thought to himself, after everything we’ve just been through; Savitar defeated and Iris safe, this is the much-needed break we deserve. For months the evil speedster Savitar disrupted their lives; while using his super speed Barry had run to the future and saw Savitar murder Iris causing him to be overcome with fear. The only thing on their minds these past few months had been ways to ensure that that future Barry had seen would not take place, and they did. Team Flash pulled through and now Barry and Iris had their lives back.

“Now tell me again why the fastest man alive needs a car?” Iris says with a smirk.

“Well we can’t have a road trip without a car now can we?” Barry replies. Iris rolls her eyes at him. They fall silent as they drive on down the coast; they didn’t even have a destination in mind. They just needed a getaway.

“Iris”

“Yeah Bear?”

“We’ll be okay you know. It’ll take some time, but soon enough everything that happened this year won’t haunt us anymore.” He says with surety. He glances at her and she looks back, giving him a small nod meaning she believed him. 

Iris reclined her seat back, stretching out in the car. “You know, this is perfect. We can finally start living our life together, without worrying about anyone dying or getting, I don’t know, evaporated or something.” Barry laughs at that. “We can just let everything fade into the past.”

“Yeah, it will all fade now” Barry says quietly. He squirms in his seat, starting to feel an odd sensation come over him. He starts to feel a little drowsy, his eyes slowly closing. “Iris…”  
……………….

“Iris!” Barry’s eyes open wide as he sits up in a panic. He looks at his surroundings, where the hell am I? What just happened? He is surrounded by nothing but light, he can’t even tell if he’s in a room; wherever he is it seems to stretch on forever. It almost looks like the…and then it hits him, the speed force…oh God I’m in the speed force. The speed force knows us too well, that seemed so real, why did it show me that? His confused state is replaced with panic as he remembers; he was trapped here, forever. I can’t stay here…Iris…I have to get out of here.

“I have to get out of here!” he yells out, frantically looking around him, waiting for the speed force to manifest itself into someone he can talk to. 

“You’re not leaving” A voice came from behind. A mist started to form around Barry obscuring his view, but slowly a figure started to form from beyond. It inched closer to Barry, coming into view and Barry stood shocked, seeing his own face looking back at him. Except it wasn’t his face, not really. This one was scarred, its eyes were hollow, there was no soul left in this person. He stood there with a wicked smirk across his face. 

“Savitar” Barry spat out, “what the hell are you doing here?”

“Where else would I be, Barry?” says Savitar. He starts walking around Barry, his arms stretched out and a wide grin ran across his face. “This is where I’m supposed to be, right here witnessing your failure. You lost Barry, I said you would.”

“I haven’t lost anything yet, I will get back to her.” Barry says with surety.

Savitar chuckles, “Are you sure about that? The speed force is pretty mad at you, what with all the time travelling and the constant manipulation of it. Why else do you think it would bring me here with you? Why do you think it showed you that vision of you and Iris on your romantic get-away? It’s to punish you, to show you the life you’re going to miss out on and I get to help it do that.”

Barry shakes his head hard, “No…you’re not actually here. I beat you! You’re not real.”

“Sure I am Barry, I am a part of you remember. All the worst parts of you, that darkness, that anger that has been boiling inside of you ever since the night your mother was killed. I was born out of that rage. You can’t get rid of me, and now you have to face me. This is your hell; trapped away from your light, Iris and stuck with your darkness, me.”

Barry looks straight at him “I will never be you. I don’t need to ever become like you, because I have her. As long as I have Iris, I will be okay.”

“And that right there is the problem Barry” Savitar states, “Your ‘holier-than-God’ attitude is exactly why you’re going to be stuck here for a long time. You have done so many horrible things this year; your parents died so you decided to go back in time and save them, you created a whole new reality and disrupted everyone’s life just to fulfill your own happiness. Then things still weren’t going your way so you tried to change it all back. You were selfish, you let that anger dictate your actions and when you put it all back everyone just fell at your feet and forgave you. You screwed up, but you never owned it, you just let everyone reassure you that it was okay. Now it’s time to own up to it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“If you want to get out of here Barry, then you need to accept your darkness.”

“I will never accept you!”

“I’m not talking about me, not exactly anyways. You need to accept the anger that is inside of you. Acknowledge that it consumed you, and probably will again. You could so easily become me Barry, twisted and starving for power, craving control over everything and everyone.

Barry scoffs at that, “I never wanted any of that. I don’t need to control everything.”

Savitar sneers at him “but I’ve seen it Barry. I’ve seen the anger when things aren’t going your way, seen the way you feel the need to control everyone.” Barry looks at him in disbelief. “You don’t believe me? Let me show you then”  
……………….

Their surroundings changed, no longer encased by light but instead in a dark room. Barry took several steps forward but stopped suddenly when he saw the scene ahead of him. It was Iris and Savitar sat facing each other in the middle of this vast room, only a tiny ray of light shining from a skylight. I remember this… this was two weeks ago. Wait, I followed her here that day so that means I must be…Just as the thought entered his head he heard the sound of wind whooshing past and saw himself standing behind a wall, listening to the conversation happening.

“What do you want to know Iris?” asked Savitar. 

Iris hesitated, “you want to kill me.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because if you don’t die, then Barry never falls in the deep end. That anger inside of him, that darkness, it never boils up to the point of him having enough power to create a duplicate –to create me.”

“But Savitar –you-, were already there. How could you be there if Barry hadn’t created you yet?”

Savitar snickered “time’s a funny thing isn’t it. You would think it’s all one long straight line, but it’s easy to twist. But you don’t really care about the science of it all, do you? 

“No I don’t. I just want to understand how you could do this” Iris said. “You were Barry before you became Savitar. When Barry first created you, you were still him. You had his memories, his  
feelings; you still remembered me and…”

“I remember losing you!” he screamed at her. “I remember loving you so much it consumed me…then you died. And it felt like a piece of me died with you; that light in me went out. Then I became a copy, I was no longer the real Barry Allen and that wasn’t good enough for him, or the rest of our family and they left me behind”

“But…” Her voice faltered.

“But what? You can’t believe that your precious Barry could ever do that? I’m sorry to ruin your perfect image of him but he is not perfect. Deep down, Barry and I are the same. You see that don’t you, your Barry can become me at any point, all he has to do is lose that light just once and remember all the tragedy he has suffered and just like that, he is gone and I am born. And you have made it all too easy for me, just waltzing in here by yourself I’m surprised he let you out of his sight because now I have you and my plans can go right ahead.”

Just as Savitar finished speaking, Barry watched himself come out from behind the wall and in a second he had Iris out of the room. The room started to fade and once again Barry found himself in some other place- Star Labs, watching him and Iris have a moment he wished had never happened. 

“What the hell were you thinking Iris!” Barry yelled.

“I had to hear it from him Barry, I needed to try to understand.” Iris spoke softly, hoping to calm Barry down.

It didn’t work though as Barry kept screaming at her, “He could’ve hurt you! God I tell you to stay right here and you do the single dumbest thing you could have done. What if I hadn’t been there Iris, huh? What would you have done then? You need to listen to me, and just stay here.”

Iris started to fume, “You can’t expect me to just sit around here doing nothing! I still have a life, a job, things I need to do. You need to start trusting me, Barry. You need to trust that I can take care of myself too; I don’t always need you to save me. Besides, I knew he wouldn’t hurt me…he’s still you after all…”  
……………

Barry was once again surrounded by the brightness of the speed force. Savitar stood before him with a smug expression on his face. “So that didn’t go your way at all did it? You just had to follow her, and then chew her out for not following your orders.”

Barry started to breathe heavily, he felt his blood boiling inside him, his hands were balled into fists and his voice was low as he spoke, “what was the point of that? Why show me something I already feel terrible about!” He stomps forward as he yells at his counterpart.

“Because Barry, feeling terrible isn’t going to change anything. Look at you, you’re completely riled up right now because I am forcing you to face yourself. Barry…you and Iris, your love is something else, it transcends all laws and understandings of how this world and how people work. But it won’t truly work until you accept your flaws; hell even Iris could see that when she was talking to me, she could see that we were the same because we are.”

Barry scoffs at him, “You really think Iris would want me to admit that. You think Iris West, who is full of so much strength, so much fire and passion and the most annoyingly head strong person I know, the Iris West that I love would ever look at me again if I told her that I had a dark side that could come out at any point with just the right trigger.”

“Yeah, I do. She’ll have to because believe it or not, she is the only one that can help you control it. She will help you manage that darkness and be the light that guides you. You just have to admit it in order for her to actually help.”

“No way, she would never be able to be with me after that.”

“You really think that don’t you? Well, let’s see which of us is right.”  
……………….

Iris sits at her desk at Central City Picture News, tapping her fingers along her keyboard, struggling to find the right words to start her latest article. She lets out a huff and glanced at the picture by her computer screen. It was a picture of her and Barry, from the night he proposed to her. She smiles remembering the way he sang to her, how he took her in his arms and swayed back and forth in their living room. She gently touches her cheek, feeling his fingers there as he had caressed her before getting down on one knee and asking her to marry him. 

Her father walks up behind her interrupting her memory of that night. “Hey sweetie,” he says, “thought you might like some lunch. I haven’t seen much of you these past few days.”

She smiles up at him, “Thanks dad. I know I’ve been distant, but I just couldn’t bring myself to be around people. It took a lot for me to come to work today but I can’t just sit at home crying forever.”

“I know you miss him, I miss him too. This is Barry though, he always finds his way home to you, no matter how far he’s gone.”

“Yeah, but what will he be like when he comes back?”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s stuck in the speed force dad, it’s basically like hell. What if…”

“What?”

“What if this drives him too far, what if he becomes like Savitar?” Iris sees the bothered look on her fathers face and looks down as she continues, “I know you don’t want to believe it, but…I saw Savitar up close, spoke to him and I could see Barry in him, my Barry. I didn’t want to accept it before but I think I have to because I can feel it, when he comes back he will be different. That light that you’ve always said he had in him will be dimmer.”

“Iris honey…”

“But that’s okay, because I’ll fill it for him. I will be his light; I will keep him from going too far. I will do anything I have to in order to get him back.” Tears start falling down her face as she looked at her father and notices that he too was crying softly. “I had this dream last night dad, Barry and I were off on a road trip and I made this joke about him needing a car and then he made some snarky comment then told me we would be okay. It felt so real, too real. I wish it was dad, I want to believe that it will be okay like he said.”

“Iris, you are without a doubt the strongest person I know. You will be okay whether he comes back or not but I know come hell or high water, Barry will come home to you.”

“He has to, it’s Barry and I always.”  
……………

“Always” Barry watches as his view of Iris starts to fade, he looks up and notices his own tears then. “My Iris,” her name rolled off his tongue so naturally like it was only meant for him to say. “She’s strong, stronger than I ever could be and her dad’s right, she will be okay without me, she has never needed me as much as I needed her.”

“But she still needs you Barry, all of you. Even I can see that you two need to be together, and as much as I may want you to be in hell for the rest of your life, I don’t want that for her. After all,” Savitar smirks, “I love her too.”

Barry looks at him, his expression quickly changing to anger. Savitar lets out a breath, “relax man, I’m not trying to start some twisted love triangle. I know I’m pretty much done for, once I get you to admit your sins and all that, the speed force will be done with me and I will cease to have a physical foothold into this world. I’ll just remain as a voice in the back of your mind,” he says with a wink.

Barry’s face was still, “you know I may have done horrible things this year, screwed up reality itself, and allowed myself to lose control; but you are something else. You say you’re a part of me, fine I will admit that you were born out of my anger; I could become you if I ever truly gave in to the darkness. But you… God, you are becoming your own entity and that scares me, because I can become that entity. I can become this unhinged and feel no emotion and crave only power and control. I know I can’t ever get rid of you now, but I know now what I have to do to keep myself, and by extension you, in check.”

Savitar claps his hands rapidly, “Good Barry! You’re finally getting it. You can’t get rid of me; we’re a package deal now. But that doesn’t mean I have to be out there in the world with you. I’ll just be tucked away as a reminder.”

Barry lets out a breath, “so does this mean I’ve passed? I can get out of here now and get back to Iris?”

Savitar shrugs, “well you’ve certainly passed the speed force’s test. So now it’s really up to you, but I think you know what you have to do in order to get back.” Barry looks back at him in confusion. Savitar laughs, “don’t worry you’ll figure it out eventually, but for now just clear your mind of this place.”

Barry closes his eyes and starts to let this scene pass him by, he feels wind on his face and the heat of the sun on his skin, he hears her voice call out to him, “Barry.”  
………………

“Barry…Barry!”

He opens his eyes quickly, looking around to see where he ended up now. His hands were gripping the steering wheel tight, the wind was blowing past them swiftly; he was back in the car with Iris. But this still isn’t real; we’re not really driving down this road…what is going on? He glanced to his side to see her staring back at him, one eyebrow raised. “Bear, are you okay?”

“Uhm, yeah I think so.” Barry replies, “I was just trying to figure something out.” He looks out at the road ahead, it seemed to go on forever, but there was a light at the end, a light that did not seem to be getting any closer, yet they were still driving towards it. Oh…I see what I have to do.

“Oh yeah? Something about us?” She asks him.

“Yeah…I hurt you Iris.

“Barry I told you, Savitar-”

Barry interjects, “I’m not talking about him. I’m talking about when I left, when I changed the past and changed reality. I hurt you then, because I left you.”

Iris turned her head away from him and he caught sight of a tear falling down her face. She did not speak for a few minutes and Barry sat patiently waiting and watching the coast pass by and the light remain still at the end of the road. “You left me,” she says, her voice quiet, “you left right when I told you I loved you. I didn’t even know that you had changed everything until you told me and suddenly I felt like I wasn’t enough for you. That our love wasn’t enough for you to stick around, and then you went into the speed force and left me again! I know you didn’t choose to go but  
you could’ve fought it, you could have fought for us but you didn’t!” She wasn’t crying now, she was just angry and letting it be known as she screamed at him.

The light at the end of the road starts creeping up on them. Barry smiles as he could finally see his way back to her. “I know Iris, I know I hurt you so badly. I am so sorry that I ever made you feel like you weren’t enough because you are so much more. I know now that I could never be without you; I can’t even be me without you, not the best version of me at least. He could see her anger start to fade, a small smile starting to spread across her face. “Ever since I was a kid, all I have wanted was to be worthy of your love and I swear to you now, I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you. I will earn your forgiveness and love back.”

She smiles widely at him, “I believe you Barry. For now just come back to me okay. I need you here now.” The light was just ahead now and with a final glance around him he pushes his foot down hard on the gas and the car lunges forward. “I’m coming home to you Iris.” 

As he pushes through the light the car and the road around him started to fade and he is now running, so fast he nearly misses that the familiar sights of Central City surround him and he lets out a whoop and races to where he knows she will be.  
…………….

"I’m coming home to you Iris…" 

“Barry!” Iris wakes up screaming out his name. She looks around anxiously realizing that she is still in their apartment, sprawled across the couch with her laptop open to the article she had been working on. It is unusually cold in the apartment, but then it had been like that since Barry left and their once cozy home was now just a place to sleep in. She starts reaching for a blanket when she feels him, the electricity emanating from his speeding into the room fills it with the warmth she so desperately needed. In one quick move she is off the couch and turned around to see him standing there, gazing at her with so much love she felt it fill up the hole that had formed in her heart. “Barry,” she whispers.

“I’m home,” he says, and that is all it takes for her to sprint over and jump in his waiting arms. Her legs circle around his waist as she clings to him, running her hands through his hair and down behind his head, bringing his head down to meet her kiss. She pulls away and says, “You came back to me.”

Barry leans in to kiss her again, then pulls away and looking straight into her eyes says, “always.”


End file.
